After the Darkness
by alan713ch
Summary: They had survived the Alpha Pack and the Darach's quest for vengeance. But were they truly the same they had been before? Collection of shorts describing the situation of different characters after the Lunar Eclipse. AU 3B. Usual disclaimer - I don't own anything Teen Wolf related.
1. Isaac

**Author's note - this is a continuation of my previous fic, Lunar Ellipse, which you can find here:**

** s/9619312/1/Lunar-Ellipse**

**I've tried to include enough references so the story can be understood without reading it but it certainly helps. Thanks!**

Stiles was still in the hospital, still too weak to go back to school but not too much to impede him ordering them around in his extremely loud and apparently too-fast-for-this-world babbling. They were all too had to see him better so they complied. Even Lydia - that was a first. The afternoon washed away into the evening and before they realized visiting Stiles had become a sleepover in the hospital and then Ms. McCall was helping the Sheriff to gather enough food for all of them and then Allison's father was there as well and the room had somehow morphed into a pack den. At Stiles behest, they even called Deaton to come to their meeting. The first meeting they had since the eclipse.

The first one they had as a pack.

-Doctor Deaton, could you please come to the hospital? No, we're fine. Yeah, Stiles room. We'll wait for you.

Isaac heard it, the slight shift in Scott's voice when he entered alpha mode. Not as evident as he had to stop him from killing Ethan in front of the whole cross-country team, but there nonetheless, a small siren song that would attract all the members of the pack.

Derek was not there, and neither Cora. They had left a couple days after the events, barely saying goodbye.

He shouldn't worry about them, though. Derek was no longer an alpha, and it had been a while since he had not been his alpha.

But would Scott take him?

The question was eating him alive, from the inside out.

He couldn't help himself. He had no place. Maybe his father had always been right and no one would take him. He started hugging himself, and tried to diminish his presence. Maybe if they ignored him then he would be able to remain there. He didn't mind being overlooked, as long as he wasn't kicked out.

He felt Allison's hand on his shoulder, warmth spreading to her.

-Isaac, are you OK?

Scott's voice was not accusative, or angry. It was concerned, and kind. He looked into his eyes, and couldn't help but feel better. A little.

-Er, well, now that we are all here I guess there's no point in leaving it for later.

-We don't have to talk about it right now, sweetie.

-No, it's better if we do. Let's get done with it so we can leave it behind us.

-Thanks, Allison - Scott sighed. It was hard for him, just like it was for everybody else - so, a couple of days ago, Ms. Blake kidnapped all of you. We assumed -.

-We already know that she wanted to sacrifice us. She was about to bury us alive when you guys intervened.

-Well, see, that's not true. She never meant to sacrifice you. Burying you alive was something she started doing when all her power finally got over her head and she lost sight of her revenge. The actual sacrifice was us.

-What?

-Me, Scott and Allison, Ms. McCall. Apparently we are the guardians of Beacon Hills.

-You have to be kidding.

-I wish we were, dad, but the thing is, we all saw the same thing - the moment when we became the guardians. Scott's bite. We were all there at the beginning.

-You were not there, Allison, we had barely gotten to Beacon Hills that night.

-Exactly. Mom almost killed Scott by running the SUV over him.

-So she could've saved us all this trouble if she... Sorry, I didn't mean to say that.

Everybody assumed it was a joke when he started laughing. Nervously.

Scott, Allison and Stiles kept recounting the events of that couple days, with a bit of input from Lydia and Isaac when required. Their story was too disjointed - Scott focused mostly on Deucalion, Allison on rescuing the parents. Stiles was the most comprehensive one, beginning all the way back when Lydia had almost been garroted by Ms. Blake - back when his dad had been taken.

Even Chris Argent was scared of the way Melissa McCall started growling when Stiles mentioned the FBI agent, Rafael McCall.

When they explained what had the sacrifice meant Mr. Argent looked at Dr. Deaton with murder in his eyes. Most of their discussion turned out to be about the horrors that could come to Beacon Hills, but they were all too tired to talk about it. Besides, there was still one big elephant in the middle of the room.

-Dad, Dr. Deaton, we have something much more important to discuss right now. Scott's pack.

-Right, my pack. Let me begin by saying that I don't know how does this work. I know that when I decided to confront Blake before she would kill Derek, something changed inside me. It was because I wouldn't give up, and I tried so hard that I was able to destroy the mountain ash circle she had trapped me in. I was able to break it - not like when you were dying, Dr. Deaton. What does that mean?

-Well, when I was kidnapped you were not ready yet. But you were on the right pack.

-That's why Deucalion had shifted its sight from Derek to me.

-Yes.

They kept talking, and Isaac couldn't help but feel that they were skirting the main issue, or at least the one issue that truly mattered to him. Who were part of the pack? Until Stiles mentioned that Morrell had called him Scott's emissary.

It was obvious that Stiles was part of the pack.

-Er, guys, I... I need to ask - who are members of the pack?

It was better if he asked. The sooner he was rejected the sooner he could leave.

-Well, all of us, that's why we are here.

-Even me?

-Dude, especially you! You were the one that triggered Scott's transformation. That night, the LAX final? When you decided it was more worth it to stay and fight than to run away?

Him? Isaac was sure Stiles had to be lying. All he had done was trying to help everyone stop the Kanima.

When he told them so Stiles just kept confirming it, and how Deucalion had been there at the game as well he left the room. He couldn't take any more of their lies anymore. He reached the door and was about to run when he heard Scott's voice calling to him.

He knew he couldn't resist it.

-Isaac? Did I say something wrong? What happened?

-No... It's just, gosh, NO. Stop saying that you want me there, stop saying that I'm part of your pack, you and I both know that I am useless, that I don't belong! It's you, and Stiles, and Allison, not me!

Scott just stood there, taking everything in.

-I was nothing when my father wanted to "take care" of me, and then Derek threw me out, and now that you are an alpha you will abandon me so I'd rather you do it now rather than later when it would actually hurt.

He had started crying. He was sobbing. Well, there goes the big bad wolf impression.

He couldn't even pull away from Scott's embrace.

-Isaac, you are pack. You are family. You are part of my family. My mom already has you folding laundry, we share food, and most importantly, I care about you. And you care about me. Stiles thinks that it was when I broke the mountain ash barrier that I became an alpha, but I think that I couldn't have if I hadn't understood that being an alpha didn't mean being a general guiding you guys to war. It means to be the head of a family, and I want all my family to take care of all its members. Including you. That is, if you want to stay.

Isaac let himself get lost in his embrace, in his strength, in his scent. The scent he loved and feared the most. The scent he had become to associate with family.

-Please. I want to stay.


	2. Lydia

She was regretting wearing heels. She wouldn't not wear them, obviously, but she regretted them. Standing in the middle of a field that only had grass and was not properly leveled in six-inches heels was torture to her feet. But they were the only shoes that matched her black dress and were part of the ensemble that included black veiled hat and matching black handpurse and she was not one to ruin an outfit for comfort.

She still considered taking them off - there was barely anybody in the burial anyways. Nobody cared about Kali or Deucalion. She was there to see Aiden buried, and she still didn't know if it was out of love, out of mercy or out of spite.

"He likes you, Lydia"

Isaac had inherited the whole graveyard business from his father and immediately had Derek's lawyer get him a business administrator so he hadn't had to think about it. He had thought of selling it, but since it was one of the few places where he still had good memories from his father he realized he couldn't. He had called and said that two of the bodies recovered that night they were to be placed in a grave nearby one of those of the unidentified bodies that had been recovered from the school one afternoon.

Stiles had said that she used to be their emissary, and that she had loved them as the favorite nephews to the favorite aunt she was to them, the only one who kept them from wandering away as tortured omegas. Well, before they became rampant murderers.

They were all lingering in the back, wearing appropriate clothes and looking appropriately mortified. Well, Stiles looked appropriately upset for being in the funeral of some of the people that had tried to kill him, but being in a wheelchair prevented him from leaving in a completely dramatic and Stiles fashion.

She knew he wouldn't do it anyways. They were her friends, finally, and that meant enduring the burial of Aiden and Ethan with her. For her.

There was only another person that was actually close to the bodies, and of course he looked the best of the best in his Calvin Klein black suit and little full moon gold handcuffs. He looked a little too perfectly poised, too perfectly calm, too perfectly clear faced.

It was obvious that Danny was dying inside.

She hadn't talked to Danny for a while. It was Jackson who had acted as an intermediate in their relationship, so when he had left for London they naturally fell apart. She realized she regretted it - he was one of the few guys who treated her as a human being, something that had taken Stiles seven years to learn, and they were always able to talk about computers and math. She still remembered when he had come out and she had tried to turn him into his Sassy Gay Friend and Fashionista only to find out that he was still a male completely uninterested in those things.

Apparently he had learned to dress well, though.

-Hey, Danny.

-Lydia.

He immediately wiped the tears that had fallen on his face. She tried to stop him, but didn't know why.

It didn't make sense that he had to hide his tears.

-I... I'm sorry. I knew you liked him, but I never thought it was that... well, you know, we're teenagers.

-I know. I know what you mean. I mean, weren't you and Aiden just friends with benefits?

-Yeah, well, I don't know what I'm doing here. Maybe I'm just here because I saw them die.

That had been the wrong thing to say, she knew. But it was the truth.

-But you loved Ethan?

-I... I don't know, I guess I did. I mean, at least I liked him really much. No, I did, I did love him. He was sweet to me, Lydia, and kind, and funny, if completely awkward. He tried to be the big bad motorcycle rider wearing only leather jackets but to be honest he was a dork. Even his voice was funny, like he was this cartoon of He-Man or something. He loved his comics, and he loved his bike, and he was a nerd about bikes. I had to go and learn all the parts of a motorcycle just for him, you know? But then he learned all the positions and rules in LAX for me, so fair is fair. He told me about Brayden, too. How she had been the one to take care of them and then how they had been separated by a legal mess and how excited he had been to find her just to have his hopes crushed when he heard she was found dead. When he told me he broke down and cried for the whole afternoon. I had no idea what to do with him. Literally. And even if things got weird after the Recital and he turned into some sort of overprotective bear he was still there for me, you know? I... Why did they had to die, Lydia? Why him?

He lost it, and started crying. She heard her friends looking up and probably coming to her but she stopped them with one of her patented glares and hugged him. If she could not feel sad for Aiden maybe she could feel sad for Ethan and Danny.

-They... I... One day I'll tell you Danny, I swear. Not today. You need to mourn the man he was to you. One day maybe I'll tell you what Ms. Blake told me when she did it.

Danny just nodded and kept crying in her arms, and she held him. She looked inside of her, looked for the banshee and just like she would wail for those who were to die she knew that she would sing to try and comfort those who had lost their loved ones. And even if she hadn't been able to carry a tune in her life she knew that the humming she was doing in his ear was comforting him.

The first day when they were back in school and Danny looked awkward in the middle of the cafeteria, as if he didn't know where to sit, she immediately grabbed him by the arm and sat him with them.

She would tell him one day, she knew. She just didn't know when.


	3. Melissa

She had sent the boys out for the night. She hadn't told them the plans of the night, but knowing Stiles he had forced John to tell him, and he had either Isaac or Scott nearby trying to eavesdrop. Maybe they were all nearby camped out. So she turned the little emitter on.

Yeah, that was Scott falling from one of the trees outside.

She yelled at him to get lost. He wanted to retaliate but she had been clear: he may be the alpha and the leader and in a twisted sense of family relationships the one in charge of them, including her, but they needed to be parents for a change. So she sent him packing and left the emitter on, as a form to discourage them from eavesdropping.

They would tell them later. They just needed to be able to discuss it on their own.

Funny how they needed to spend a night alone just after being cooped in for more than 48 hours kidnapped by a deranged woman who wanted to ensure that their children would sacrifice themselves. Then again it's not like they had discussed the situation of their children being in the middle of a supernatural mess and what was their role in it, since they didn't even know if they were going to be alive. Instead of thinking about it she went to the kitchen and made sure dinner would be ready when they arrived.

First it was the Sheriff. He came in with a bunch of flowers and a bottle of Merlot that would go fantastic with the Beef Burgundy that was roasting in the oven. They had spent so much time together raising their boys that for the first time she realized they never had looked at each other as something different from "Stiles' Dad" and "Scott's Mom". She knew he was still in love with Claudia and it was not like she could blame him. Claudia was perfect for him, and she had been a fantastic woman when she was alive. She even missed talking to her about Stiles and Scott every once in a while.

Chris Argent brought a gun in a box. At least the box had a ribbon.

They made small chat for a while. Pleasant small chat. The weather, finally behaving like usual Beacon Hills weather and not like freak storms all over the place. John's load of work with processing Jennifer Blake and finally sorting out everything that had happened but managing to keep the words supernatural, werewolf and druid out of the reports. The department had been great to him, working over time to keep him from working too much after being kidnapped and having his kid in two freak accidents in less than 24 hrs. Chris talked about the long amount of paperwork he had to go through explaining his security consulting business to the FBI, and trying to convince Finstock to set up an archery team in Beacon High so Allison could be part of a team and not just "Cross Country". It was obvious that while a good runner she may be, she was nowhere near Varsity quality. She got a laugh out of John when she told them about Scott slamming the door in Rafael's face and then she was the one to laugh at Chris' face when John explained the situation to him.

It had been a while. It didn't hurt so much anymore.

But they were there for a reason. At least they were all human enough to wait to discuss it until after dinner.

-So, John, how are you doing? How are you feeling?

-I don't know yet. I mean, now a lot of the things that have happened lately make sense, but also now I have to make lies out of Napa wine so I won't sound like a raging lunatic.

-Tell me about it. When Isaac was checked into the hospital a couple months ago I had to make a lot of legal hoop jumping trying to explain why he was scheduled for surgery when his wounds had almost completely healed.

-You have no idea how interesting it can be to fill your tax forms when most of your income comes from werewolf hunting. After all, it's not like you can go to your local hunting store and get a hunting license for lycanthrope.

That was funny.

-So, what are we now? What is Scott to us? I mean... are we part of the pack?

Chris scoffed, but the laugh didn't reach his eyes. He had been considering it. Melissa remembered hearing Allison talking to Scott about a change in the code, and she wondered what that code was, what that change was, and how could it be related to the whole werewolf business.

-Is it uncommon that werewolves commune with humans? I mean, are they isolated creatures, like - ?

-Derek?

-Yeah...

-No, no, actually it is uncommon for a werewolf to be alone. Those are called omegas and are usually one step away from suicide. No, werewolf families are inclusive, so it is not surprising that humans are part of them. In the Hale fire, after all, not all who died were werewolves and that's why I was particularly horrified about it. Our family was supposed to hunt the hunters, not the prey.

-Members of the Hale family were not wolves?

-Yes. Derek's father, for example. Werewolves are not genetically impeded to mate with humans, and as a matter of fact is usually better that you are a born wolf rather than a bitten one.

Things to do as soon as Scott got home: give him the condom talk AGAIN.

-But being part of the family never actually involved being part of the pack. That would be... werewolf business.

-Well, you have to bear in mind that my son and Scott are basically joined by the hip. Now that I think about it I'm surprised Stiles didn't become a wolf just by sheer association with Scott.

Now that was funnier and even more true.

-Stiles does have a role in here. I mean, Scott always rejected Derek as his alpha, so that meant he was an omega, and like I said omegas are very reclusive, and tend to display suicidal tendencies - they hunt alone, so they are always at a disadvantage; they reject social interaction because it doesn't compare to the feeling of being in a pack. It is a pretty interesting case, then, that Stiles and... Allison acted as tethers for him, and that enabled him to access his humanity long enough for him to establish himself as a guardian. For them to establish their role as guardians.

'That's what started Scott's road to become an Alpha, I guess.

-It's ironic, isn't it? That we are the sheriff, the medic and the hunter, and it's our children who are actually fulfilling the role of guardians of our town.

-Well, we didn't know!

-And how good they are at coping with it. And you, John. I had a nervous breakdown when Scott showed his wolf face to me. Well, we were being attacked by that kid Daehler so I guess I wasn't in my right mind and then your father had that lizard thing choke me to bully him...

-Hey, it's OK. It's perfectly OK. It's much more that someone can usually take.

-I guess that's why they were so reluctant to tell us. Because they didn't trust we could take it.

-But we are their parents! We are supposed to take care of them.

-I know.

And even if they had just said it, they knew they could not tell Mrs. Martin yet, at least not until they understood what it meant for Lydia to be a Banshee.

They stayed up talking until the morning, about what had happened, what they knew, what they didn't, what they had to ask their children. Before the two men left, she had to ask them to help her drag Scott and Isaac inside, both of them asleep in the woods nearby. Stiles would've been there if he weren't bedridden and Lydia had volunteered herself and Allison to keep an eye on him.

She wanted to be his mom again. She felt strange being his underling.


	4. Danny

He didn't want to be there. He should've taken his mom offer and stayed in the house one more day. It's not like his grades would've taken that big of a hit. But no, he had decided to wear the "I'm a big boy" hat today, and now here he was, looking awkward in the middle of the cafeteria.

It's not like he was being treated differently. He just felt that way. He had started to fall out of his clique when Jackson left for London, and when he finally had settled down with going out with Ethan he had to go and die. So now he knew he couldn't go to the table where all the other LAX players were because he wouldn't fit anymore. It wasn't that easy to hang out with the kid whose boyfriend had died, was it?

Danny suddenly realized he didn't have friends anymore. That hit him really hard.

He was about to leave and eat all by himself when Lydia's hand grasped him by the arm and steered him towards her table. Well, their table.

He hadn't even placed his tray properly when Stiles was already stealing some of his fries. Not even a dignified "Hey!" stopped him. Allison gave him a smile, and he nodded to McCall and Lahey. He still felt a bit awkward, like they all shared a big secret and wouldn't tell him, but soon enough he felt at ease with them.

He had never liked or disliked any of them (although Stiles annoyed the hell out of him), and even tried to hang out with them before Jackson went ballistic at McCall's sudden athletic prowess. He was surprised that they just took him in. At least for lunch time.

He was the last to get cleaned up that afternoon. He did it on purpose - he wasn't sure he could take all the hustle of the locker room after practice. Or so he thought: McCall's, Lahey's and Stilinki's stuff was still in their lockers. Apparently Coach decided it was a good day to torture them since they were doing burpees in the middle of the field. Even Stiles, and he had barely got up from the wheelchair.

-Finstock's gonna keep them there, isn't he?

Lydia and Allison were also waiting for them. Lydia was pouting as if her plans had been completely ruined.

-Yeah. I don't know what's got into him - ever since... that night, he's been particularly angry at them. And he's looked funny at you two as well.

-Yeah, we know.

-Anyways, if they are going to be stuck doing aerobics the rest of the afternoon, you are going shopping with us!

-What? Lydia, we've had this conversation before - I am not your fashion advisor.

-And who said we are going to buy stuff for me?

-I don't need new clothes.

-Danny, your boyfriend just died. You need a makeover.

He used to joke a lot with Jackson that Beacon Hills was this little bubble where nobody cared whether he was gay or not. However, one of the stigmas of being gay had haunted him ever since he came out, and it was that everybody thought of him as some sort of expert in the themes of fashion. Even Coach had asked him advice on an outfit once. Ironic that it was Jackson who dominated the subject since he was the one who always needed to look perfect. Lydia had rubbed on to him too much. He remembered how much Jackson used to complain about going shopping with Lydia, and now he thought it may had all been a charade to keep the macho persona up.

No - it was the fact that even when they were buying clothes for him Lydia had managed to make the trip all about herself.

But he couldn't deny that he was having fun? Well, not exactly his cup of tea - he would've gone back home and tried another hacking challenge, or maybe a speed run in one of his favorite games. If he truly felt that bored he would have started another calculus challenge, and he made a mental note to check where Lydia was on those, but it was true that he was keeping his mind occupied. When the charade finally fell off and Lydia started buying things for herself he could even enjoy a little bantering with them, and even finally had a conversation with Allison that lasted longer than three minutes.

Six stores, two suits, seven shirts and a cinnabon later he could even say he had a good afternoon.

He assumed that they were done for the day but before they could drop him back to school so he could pick up his car they stopped at a book store he hadn't seen before. It was out of the way, and it had a very suspicious looking tattoo parlor for a neighbor business. He never thought that either Lydia or Allison would hang out in a place like this, and for a moment Danny feared that all of this was an elaborate prank. At least the bookstore was well lit and the woman at the counter was pleasant enough. He let himself relax a little while he started to wander the shelves. He immediately recognized that they were in a used books bookstore, and that apparently a lot of the books were about the occult.

What the hell were these girls into?

-Do you have any books on Banshees?

That sent a shiver down his spine. What would Lydia want to know about the Wailing Women? Was it related to the attacks? It didn't take a genius to put two and two together and detect the Celtic theme of most of the events, including his mistletoe poisoning. He tried to position himself where he could hear the girls talking and maybe gather some information, but they were discussing the clothes and the amount of money the books would cost and for some reason Lydia said that Derek Hale should pay for them. He grabbed a book to pretend he wasn't listening.

It was about moonsingers. It couldn't be. He immediately looked to see if there were more books about it but apparently that was the only copy. He wanted to hide it or something, but if he really didn't want to bring attention to it he realized he should just buy it with a bunch of other books. So he grabbed a bunch of books and waited until the counter lady came back with a couple of obscure tomes (one that looked stained with something suspiciously similar to blood) and sold them to Lydia. He then approached them and tried to look nonchalant when paying two hundred dollars in books that were not even textbooks. His father was going to kill him but hopefully his grandpa would defend him. They needed to make sure nobody knew.

-Mahealani?

-Yeah.

-Do you know what it means?

-Heaven's moon. Full moon.

-Yeah. I just think it is funny that your last name is Full Moon, and among the books you are buying there's one about moonsingers.

-Well, what can I say? I'm attracted to those kind of things, you know, anything moon related. It's almost a fetish: once I bought this huge stuffed moon that we ended up giving to one of my cousins because it looked ridiculous in my room.

They all laughed and left the store. Lydia drove him back to BHHS where apparently Finstock was now yelling at McCall, Stiles and Lahey. Hadn't they been doing that for hours now?

At some point someone was going to sue Coach for... being so weird.

He hadn't realized Allison was going through the bunch of books he had bought. He tried very hard not to panic.

-Moonsingers. Never heard of them.

-Me neither. Like a said, a small obsession with everything... lunatic.

-Well, here you go. See you tomorrow?

-What?

-We'll be at the same table, dummy. Don't be a stranger.

Sometimes Lydia's smiles could light up the whole parking lot.

He knew they had their secrets, and he probably would never found about them.

He wondered if he could still be their friend with secrets of his own.


	5. Christopher

If anything had to be said about Melissa McCall is that she was at least three times smarter than her son and a very good shot. When they had agreed that he would teach her and the Sheriff how to deal with supernatural creatures he had assumed they would had to go through all the basics including teaching her how to shoot a gun. It turned out one of her boyfriends had taken care of that a long time ago.

Her aversion to guns came from the fact that they reminded her of Rafael. He had taught her how to fire a .45, a .357 and a 9 mm. Apparently he had also taught her to never fight someone with a gun if she didn't have any, and a couple ways to subdue any creep who would come at her with bad intentions. That had been the way she had stopped him the only time she saw him beat Scott and according to her, what had made the both of them realize their marriage was not working.

He would not pry. But if at any moment she wanted to talk about it, he would listen.

He had given her the mamba as a joke of what he could bring to dinner that night, but now he couldn't help but be proud that it had been the gun he chosen, seeing the Sheriff talk to her about the pros and cons of the South African weapon. He couldn't help but notice the way their bodies behaved, betraying an old and longstanding friendship, probably built upon the bricks of stupid actions Scott and Stiles had done during their lives. The fact that they had opened to each other had let to several nights in which they discussed children antics, awkward experiences and acne problems. He had even received the end tour of baby pictures, which now he could use to blackmail either of them. The boys had been knit together for a long time, and he wondered why the parents had never, well, decided to form a single unit.

Another night and a bottle of Jack had answered him. The Sheriff still loved his wife, and that had kept him from seeing Melissa as anything but Scott's mom. He had had quite a bit of alcohol before he admitted that, and even more before he had entertained the possibility. After that, Chris made sure the Sheriff stayed at his place and when he was drinking one of the secret Argent hangover remedies he admitted not remembering anything of their conversation the previous night. Chris knew he was lying but respected his decision. Maybe he was just lying to himself. He was not to break that.

Seeing them together made her realize how much he missed Victoria.

Truth is, they had been young and careless once. That's what had scared him the most about Allison's relationship with Scott - that it reminded him too much of his own relationship with his late wife. Victoria had once been a careless girl, and even if she hated the term, a complete Alpha Bitch. She ruled wherever she went, even if that meant the hallways of the small Virginia college they just luckily decided to attend at the same time. Class president, sorority regent, three internships. Business and math major, with a penchant for archery as an extracurricular activity.

He had been the only one to keep up with her, if only because he was only a Liberal Arts major with a minor in Medieval France History and therefore had a lot more of free time than she did. So he devoted all of it in grabbing her attention, wooing her, dating her, seeing what made her tick. It had been a great relief the night they got married, after the celebratory sex they just had, to learn that she had seen him since before he started pursuing her and decided to play the hard one just because she loved the game of pursuit. She left him tied up to the bed all that night. It had been a restless night, in a good way.

Nothing had changed when she entered the family business and became a hunter herself, specializing in stealth and poison rather than outright hunting. That usually meant she stayed home because, well, killing with poison was usually not necessary as werewolves rarely tend to be prominent members of society that need to be conspicuously killed to avoid attention. Most of them are good to go with a couple bullets and a sword in the waist.

Melissa had puked after hearing that. The nurse out of all of them.

What changed Victoria was Allison's birth, and he realized it changed him as well. Suddenly, it all became about protecting their little girl. Even taking her role as the new Argent matriarch had been about protecting Allison. He still wondered if Kate ever resented them for Victoria gaining power in the ranks.

_Hell no! She gets to worry about stupid shit like money and litigation and stuff. I get to have fun! Besides, you and I both know that I'd be crap at the job, so don't worry about it. Be proud of her, because she's fucking earned it._

He knew that in the back of his mind he accepted to teach them about the supernatural not because he had to (although he surely did) but because in a twisted sort of way, he felt he was honoring Victoria. After all, they were two parents trying to protect their kids. If she had understood that being a werewolf was not the horrors his family used to believe, maybe she would still be here, with him. With them.

He could even see the old Victoria becoming friends with Scott's mom.

They were done for the day. They packed up, paid the shooting range and moved to their respective cars. They offered to help him loading the equipment back into his SUV, but he politely declined, knowing the both of them were antsy to return to their sons. He knew the feeling - he wanted to call Allison and make sure she was OK, but for once she had accepted to stay with Lydia at their home, researching Banshees. For all the cautions and thoroughness that his father had, apparently his bestiary didn't have an entry on them. Lydia's eyes were burning with the fires of curiosity. She needed to know, and frankly, they all needed to know.

They wouldn't want to hear her scream just to find out that any of them had died. The thought haunted him now much more than ever.

-Mr. Argent!

-Mr. McCall, what a coincidence.

Melissa had already left. As a matter of fact, he suspected the FBI agent had waited until the other two were gone so he could talk to him. He couldn't bring himself to like the guy when he had just met him, and now even less after all the stories he had heard from him. He had the air of that kid in high school that was both good in academics as well as sports, and flaunted it. He assumed he did, otherwise he wouldn't have ended up in the FBI.

-I didn't know you trained with my wife in this shooting range.

-Something she decided to take after our little time together. You know how kidnapping can alter someone's perception of their day to day life. And I thought you were divorced?

-Ah, yes. My bad. Old habits die hard.

Bullshit. Either possessive traits or a test to see his behavior. He hoped for the latter.

-I thought you've been divorced for a while.

-Well, I'll be honest with you Mr. Argent, I've never stopped thinking of her. Even if I knew our marriage was a disaster. I know she would never allow me back, but you can't blame a man for dreaming, can you?

Now that was odd behavior.

-Anyways, I actually wanted to ask you about Scott.

-Me? About Scott?

-Yes. See, I know I was a bad parent and I did all the crap I did. And I am trying to own it, you know? I'm trying to atone for my sins. I... I don't want to be a zero in Scott's life, even if I can't be his dad anymore. I understand that. But at least I want to be able to look at him and say "Hi, son" without getting a door slammed in my face. He won't talk to me, Melissa won't talk to me and I think none of the Stilinskis has spoken to me outside of work environment for at least six years, so I've only had the options of talking to you, Allison or Isaac Lahey about him, and I am pretty sure they will be loyal to him.

-So you came to me?

-Well, the father of the ex-girlfriend sounds like a good way to get dirt on him.

He couldn't help but chuckle.

-I'm sorry, Agent McCall -

-Rafael.

-Rafael, but I won't betray your son. Even if Allison and he dated a while ago, they are still very good friends, and I actually like the kid. That I can tell you: I haven't met anyone who didn't like Scott after meeting him, except probably for my wife, and it was completely on her side.

Surprisingly, the agent nodded. He didn't push or anything, he just looked a little bit sad.

-Keep knocking that door. It will keep slamming on your face, yes, but at some point he may see that you truly intend to get to know him, and maybe it won't be such a hard slam. Besides, if he keeps slamming it at some point the frame will give up.

Agent McCall thanked him and left him alone.

He wondered why he had said that. It's not like he believed in the blood is thicker than water nonsense, and he was a hundred percent sure that Scott will not make amends with a man that mistreated him as badly as Melissa had made it sound.  
Maybe it was just the fact that he didn't want the man to be alone, just like he had been. Until he had found his pack.


	6. Cora

She loved Maine in the fall. The first snows would fall leaving the ground damp, mossy, but the cold would not be so unbearable that she wished for her mama's fur. That was in the middle of winter, and made her miss her much more. Miss how she would talk to her in the night, telling her stories about wolves and foxes and spirits in the graveyards, about sprites and good witches and serpents with feathers instead of scales. How she would tell her about the family lore and the positions in the pack hierarchy and the honors and responsibilities that came with belonging to such an old family as the Hales. Or how she would take her to the kitchen so they could see her papa cook for everybody, and even if it was for more than ten or twenty people at the time all the brownies would still be perfect and all the roasts would be tender on the inside.

Every once in a while she had had steak tartar. Her papa still gagged, even after thirty years of marrying into the family. Even if he was a professional chef who had cooked different kinds of meals, including his pride and joy, the Nose-to-Tail Deer feast that he would do once a year for all of the family. It had been Uncle Peter who had always eaten the brains.

She was glad that they had reached the Clinic in the middle of a light snow. A summer snow, some of the natives would call it, for it would not be cold enough for them to get their jackets out, even if some of the transplanted residents felt like shivering.

It wasn't cold for her too.

She knew why she had been put there, and had tried very hard to explain to Derek that she didn't blame him, or Laura. She remembered her breaks, and Laura crying in the apartment in New York, and how Derek was actually afraid of her when she had her episodes. She knew that Laura didn't know what else to do when they drove there all those years ago, and checked her in, and visited her once a week. Probably one of the few Asylums that knew of the supernatural, and they had the means and ways to deal with werewolves suffering of psychosis and trauma that stemmed from seeing a whole house with all of the people she knew trapped inside catch fire.

She had even heard Kate's laugh, manically, and had always wanted to ask Derek why she had dated her if she was the one that caused the fire.

That was an awkward conversation.

When they talked - when they finally talked, she saw that he had actually blocked most of his memories from the first year in New York, a coping mechanism different from hers, which was lashing out at everything and everyone. That explained why he had never visited her - Laura did mention that he couldn't talk about anyone in the family and had probably assumed that she had died as well. It also explained why he never came for her after Laura died, triggering her own rebellious behavior and her escape from the Asylum which led her immediately into Deucalion's hands.

She was glad she met Boyd and Erica. They could tell her about him - she still couldn't process that the slightly dorky and definitely idiotic teenager of his brother had turned out to be such a dour man. But then she remembered the fire and Kate Argent and it all made sense.

Even if she knew them so little, she missed them so much.

She had checked herself back in. It was mostly so she could be discharged, because leaving in a frenzy usually meant that you were still not cured, no matter how good you had behaved in the last couple of years. Laura had meant to take her out, but she herself had been the one to push the date one week longer, one month longer. It had been her sanctuary, and as long as Laura came to visit her, she didn't need the world outside. It had surprised Derek her decision to come back, but it was a necessity. A closure she needed.

Besides, now he could check her out without any problems.

It had felt good to talk to Dr. Remus about everything that had happened. She even managed to convince Derek to see the psychiatrist while they were waiting for her to be released, and saw that it was good for him. Since it would take a couple months, he had actually got an apartment and visited every day. His therapy was weekly though, and she saw that it was too good for him to just abandon it when she was finally out.

Four months later, they were still living in Maine.

Now the snow was heavy and wet and never ending. She didn't like it much, but she no longer missed her mother's furs. Now she had her brother, and they were sharing an over sized turkey for dinner. He still hadn't learn how to cook but the woman from three floors below had taken to be their mother.

She had seen Derek Hale's smile. She had lost the battle against her own wits that day.

Among the things released from the trust when she was finally discharged were her personal effects. She had forgotten about Blinky, the little stuffed wolf that slept with her protecting her from bad dreams. She asked Derek about Mr. Sourwolf. She did it in front of Ana Maria one day when she was helping them to clean the apartment just so the amount of humiliation involved was as much as possible.

It never crossed her mind that the answer would be "Burned in the fire".

She wanted to kill herself so badly when she saw his face. How could she had been so stupid.

So she spent the next day locked up in her room, browsing all the stuffed animal online stores she could find.

One week later Derek came back from his afternoon run to find the apartment flooded with stuffed wolves, happy wolves, sour wolves, angry wolves. He ordered her to get rid of them immediately. Except for the giant one that took her three hours to get into his room, a magnificent work of art that reached from the floor to the ceiling, under the excuse that it probably had been damaged when trying to get it through the door.

She would never tell him that she saw him cuddling to it that night.

He got a job as a barista in the local coffee shop, and she decided to volunteer at the asylum. They were settling down into a routine that seemed so stupid she almost wanted to run away again, but it was just that she had never seen herself in a small town in the middle of Maine, even if she was working with other supernatural creatures, using all the stories her mother had told her when she was little. Dr. Remus was encouraging her to get her GED so she could go to the community college and maybe to college later so she could get a degree and be paid for the job she was doing, even if she told him several times that she didn't need the money. But she dreamed about the idea, since it would have been nice to get some of those experiences that had disappeared under the flames.

That's when she felt it for the first time. She had been sleeping and dreaming about her papa teaching her how to butcher a deer when she heard the howling in her dreams and the thug in her heart. She wanted to ignore it, to pretend it wasn't there, the call of the Alpha. Something had happened in Beacon Hills. Scott was calling for them.

She assumed he did it unintentionally since he actually knew how to use a phone. Which scared her even more because it meant that he was in great danger and tapping into his instincts rather than his mind. Just like her mother did the night she died.

She left her room to find Derek in a shouting match with Lydia over the phone. She didn't need her senses to get the best of the conversation. Beacon Hills was turning into hell on earth because of the Nemeton acting as a source of power every single supernatural creature would want to tap into. Like wounded animals reaching a spring in the middle of the forest. She felt it too, but she knew that power was not what brought happiness. Unlike Peter, who had never learned that lesson, and from what she could gather had stayed in Beacon Hills to try and steal the Alpha powers from Scott.

It sounded like him to ally with warlocks to try and overturn a little boy who had done his job right.

Derek told her she didn't have to come, but that wasn't true. Scott had taken her in, and subconsciously she had accepted him. She was part of his pack, and it was time both Derek and she played her part in it.

So she took Little Sourwolf out of Derek's room and packed him in a box and sent him to her pack, with a note of what to do with it. It may have been an emergency and this was serious business, but she still managed to do it without Derek noticing it. She wanted to see his face when he realized that she had chosen Stiles as the receiving address.


	7. After the Darkness - Author's Notes!

Hey!

Thanks for reading this little collection of drabbles. It allowed me to vent off a little bit on what I thought was wrong with the ending of Season 3A and set up nicely what I am writing as a complete AU3B.

Remember that you can read the fic previous to this one, Lunar Ellipse, in which I wrote the first divergences from the show. I tried to keep this fic as fully explained as possible, but just in case there are any questions.

I hope to keep uploading twice a week, Fridays and Sundays. This should give me enough time to complete the season without leaving you without a chapter. So far I have one of ten episodes fully written (six chapters plus a prologue and an epilogue), and several portions of the other episodes as well.

Someone reviewed me with a critique of my style. Thing is, English is not my first language - as a matter of fact I use this as a way to practice. Therefore, my style _is_ different. I apologize if that makes it difficult for someone to follow up.

Once More, with Feeling: Thank you!

And if any questions plague your head, don't hesitate to ask!


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